THE STAGE IS set for Shinzo Abe, the man poised to become the youngest Prime Minister of Japan in 100 years when the legislature votes on September 26. The list of commitments is long and the territory a little unknown.

A firm nationalist, Abe is grandson of former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi and son of former foreign minister Shintaro Abe. He is known as a hardliner with an unabashedly Conservative agenda that includes amending country’s 50-year-old pacifist Constitution.

Born in Nagato, 52-year-old Abe graduated from Seiki University and studied politics at the University of California. He then worked for the Kobe Steel in the US. He debuted in the Parliament in 1993 winning a seat in his father’s Yamaguchi prefecture.

However, he could get prominence only in 2002 during his stint as the deputy Cabinet secretary. Abe became cynosure of all eyes when as the chief negotiator he took the lead role in pressing North Korea to surrender the Japanese citizens it kidnapped in the 1970s and 80s. His tough stance and uncompromising attitude impressed the Japanese public and earned him the title ‘Hawk’. He started getting noticed as a rising star in 2005 when he was appointed chief Cabinet secretary, an important position sometimes referred to as the ‘PM’s wife’.  

He is also famous for his impeccable support to the outgoing PM Junichiro Koizumi. And likewise he is eager to strengthen the US alliance and promotes a more assertive role for Japan abroad as written in his recent bestseller Toward A Beautiful Nation. But political observers view it as a part of his vision of a new world grouping that would isolate China.

Some experts also fear Abe has latched on to some risky goals for which he is relatively inexperienced and lacks high-level government track record. His thrust on the revision the 1947 Constitiution of Japan to eliminate pacifist post-war military tradition has not gone down very well with the insiders.  He supports revisionist history textbooks that teach students to take pride in their nation rather than focus on the dark accounts of Japanese atrocities and aggression. He is also a proponent of the Yasukuni war shrine, which honours war criminals among the country’s war dead. As such some pacifists believe Abe’s attitude border on the dangerous.

That makes an interesting watch on the super-charged Japanese political atmosphere.